Sappho and Phaon: In a Series of Legitimate Sonnets

by Mary Robinson

Sappho here differs radically from the version that would emerge in the 19th century. In fact, this had really been the normative view of Sappho since the Renaissance. In this sonnet sequence, which does not appear to contain any actual lines from Sappho, Sappho is the tortured lover of a boatman, Phaon. She follows him to Sicily, and finally leaps off the Leucadian cliffs to her doom. It is not unlikely that this tale of love gone wrong appealed to Robinson on a very personal level. Robinson, during her lifetime, was known as 'the English Sappho,' and has recently been rediscovered as a feminist trailblazer. (Quote from sacred-texts.com)

About the Author

Mary Robinson, nee Darby (1757 - 26 December 1800) the English poet and novelist, was also known for her role as Perdita (heroine of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale) in 1779. It was during this performance that she attracted the notice of the young Prince of Wales, later King George IV of Great Britain and Ireland. Her affair with him ended in 1781, and "Perdita" Robinson was left to support herself through an annuity granted by the Crown (in return for some letters written by the Prince) in 1783 and through her writings. Today, she is remembered both as the first public mistress of George IV, and as a woman writer of the late 18th century. (Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.

Genres: Poetry, Read For School, Classics, British Literature

66 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1794

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Mary Robinson, nee Darby (1757-1800) was an English poet and novelist. During her lifetime she was known as 'the English Sappho'. She was also known for her role as Perdita (heroine of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale) in 1779 and as the first public mistress of George IV. After seeing her as Perdita, and declaring himself enraptured with her, the Prince of Wales, offered Mary Robinson twenty thousand pounds to become his mistress. However, he soon tired of her and abandoned her after a year, refusing to pay the money. Her reputation was destroyed by the affair, and she could no longer find work as an actress. Eventually, the Crown agreed to pay Robinson five thousand pounds, in return for the Prince's love letters to her. In 1783, at the age of 26, Robinson suffered a mysterious illness that left her partially paralyzed. From the late 1780s, she became distinguished for her poetry. In addition to poems, she wrote six novels, two plays, a feminist treatise, and an autobiographical manuscript that was incomplete at the time of her death.

Reviews

[Shawn Enright · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t like this poem but I know that it’s great and complex and worth reading — so I should give it its due rating. But I don’t like it. (In other words, I feel the same about quinoa as I do this poem: It’s good for me, but I prefer other things that are good for me, like brown rice, broccoli, or Tennyson).

I want to spend more time with Shakespearean sonnets to really understand why they are amazing, then revisit Robinson’s to compare and contrast. Post-grad maybe.

[Neena · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmm, I'm not quite sure what to say about this. I read this as part of my english lit course on romanticism and feminism. I wouldn't say I loved the poetry, and its certainly not the best I've read, but I did enjoy it. On a surface level it seems like a story of painful and bitter unrequited love - who am I kidding. On all levels its pained, choking romantic yearning against the backdrop of nature and the gods and everything else you'd imagine about a set of poems constructed in the late 18th century. For my analysis of this poem, I've been attempting to consider the nature of 'desire' in this series, and the apparently self-destructive qualities of romance and sensibility that Robinson practically shoves down your throat. I felt almost obliged to consider this a 'feminist' text for its representation of female desire, but really it seemed like an attempt to stifle sensibility and praise 'reason' instead.

Now I know what you're thinking. How does a book about desire and female sexuality become anti-feminist or anti-sensibility? Quite easily it seems. I felt that Mary Robinson purposefully separated herself as the poet, from Sappho - the character. As if to say this was Sappho's downfall, being a romantic. And I have not made the same mistakes of choosing sensibility over rationality . I can understand how in its time, it may have been considered radical and a pioneering feminist text, but today it's just another example of women belittling women

Okay but not really my thing.

[Sonnet Mamgain · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say. I felt things .

Pursuing love is complicated which is why some of us (including myself) are scared to pursue it in the first place. Reading Robinson's sonnet made me think of the paralysis that infects our romantic lives. Something strange takes place. We become our own Prufrock and measure out our lives with hesitation instead of pursuing it with courage.

Perhaps, Robison's sonnets also reminded me of Sylvia Plath's Mad Girl's Love Song . Perhaps this is because I am a mad girl , a hopeless Romantic but also an unwillingly stoic one. I can pursue love in imagination but in actuality I am paralysed.

There's something about this collection. Perhaps its the emotional vertigo that struck me deeply.

He never lov'd, who could not muse and sigh,
Spangling the sacred turf with frequent tears,
Where the small rivulet, that ripples by,
Recalls the scenes of past and happier years,
When, on its banks he watch'd the speaking eye,
And one sweet smile o'erpaid an age of fears! - Sonnet XXVIII

[Anja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just going to leave some of my favourite lines here to speak for themselves:

'The steps of spotless marble, scatter'd o'er/With deathless roses arm'd with many a thorn/Lead to the altar. On the frozen floor' - II

'Is it [love] to loathe the light, and wish to die?' - VI

'Dang'rous to hear, is that melodious tongue,/And fatal to the sense those murd'rous eyes' - X

'Soon, shall another clasp the beateous boy;/[...] The bee flies sicken'd from the sweetest flow'r;/The lightning's shaft, but dazzles to destroy' - XXXII

[abby murrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

ROMANTICISM. im so confused

[coricopatcat · Rating 3 out of 5]

honestly, why is love so allied to pain?

[Alex Vardill · Rating 4 out of 5]

loses points for the distinct lack of sapphism

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dear me, I read this nauseating collection of flowery driblets which are *based on* Sappho's fragments, thinking they were Sappho's poems too, that makes two pretenders to Sappho that I've read, thanks to wholly inadequate descriptions at the iTunes store.

Apparently Mary Robinson, nee Darby (1757-1800) was an English poet and novelist and during her lifetime she was known as the English Sappho. Poor Sappho, to be so cruelly debased!

Moral: stick to real books publisher by real publishers who describe their contents accurately so that you know what you're getting.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was read as part of one of my Lit subjects at uni, but poetry and I have a history of mutual dislike. As important and as radical (to her contemporaries, at least) her later writings were, I think perhaps that I'm more interested in her unbelievable life and the experiences she had.